Top TTUSD capital needs estimated at $140 million

A top priority identified in the facilities master plan for Tahoe Truckee Unified School District is safety and security, which includes paving. Pictured is Truckee Elememtary School's parking lot in November 2013.

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A draft facilities master plan for Tahoe Truckee Unified School District was revealed this week, identifying several top priorities to address capital needs.

“This is not the end of any process,” Superintendent Rob Leri said at Wednesday’s board of trustees meeting. “This is really the next phase in our process of considering our facility needs.”

District-wide, the entire scope of work — which includes construction and soft costs such as design and review — is estimated at $236.84 million. Of that, $140.39 million is estimated for top priorities.

“(It) is in 2014 dollars, today’s dollars, because we don’t know when a project would begin, so we don’t know what that escalation may be,” explained Steve Newsom, associate and project director for LPA, a consulting firm hired by TTUSD for its facilities master plan update.

Over the next few weeks, the school board will hone down priorities, while additional community input is taken. In conjunction, funding details and options will be explored.

TOP PRIORITIES

According the draft plan, the following items are listed as top priorities to address:

Replacement of portable classrooms with permanent construction.

Moderation and reconfiguration of existing classroom buildings, which could include repairing, upgrading or replacement of roofs, windows, doors, hardware, floors and ceilings; and exterior and/or interior patching/painting.

A 10-year outlook estimates TTUSD will have $16.15 million available for capital facilities from a combination of the building fund, redevelopment revenue, capital facilities fund, deferred maintenance fund and Proposition 39 energy funding.

Another funding option the district is considering is a bond measure for the November general election ballot.

A survey of 350 district registered voters conducted last fall by TBWB Strategies indicated a school bond measure would garner the 55 percent voter support needed to pass.

The district will decide whether to pursue a bond measure in the coming months, along with factors such as amount, term and yearly financial impact to taxpayers.

“We wanted to make sure we had the facilities master plan at least at the draft stage, so we could understand what the scope of it is before we started considering asking taxpayers to help fund the facilities update,” Leri said in an interview earlier this month.

The school board is expected to adopt the final facilities plan on March 19, at which point the district will have “some sense” of a funding plan, Leri said. TTUSD’s facility master plan was first approved in 2003 and was revised in 2007.